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cop trouble

Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2005 1:52 pm
by vette76
usually every time i take out the spree a cop is waiting around the corner, but today i was suprised when a cop smiled and drove right past me.

Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2005 5:33 pm
by BluPhire
I believe it depends whether or not the cop, male or female, is o their rag. lol. Here in Goodyear it is legal to ride it, but in my old neighborhood, a cop pulled me over on my mini chopper like this one: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 23582&rd=1 . They're just jealous.

Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 12:17 am
by Tippmann98
Haha, i am AMAIZED i have never had trouble on myne.

Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 10:32 am
by Jamie_Miles
Heres a post I made a while back: http://hondaspree.net/modules.php?name= ... sc&start=0

Have put over 1,000 miles on it since then and my brother rides it 6 miles round trip back and forth to work 3 times a week. No cops have bothered us since.

Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 8:43 pm
by Jerry
One time, just ONE time in all the years I've been scooting, was I stopped by a cop. Actually three of us were out that day.
Here's the scenario:
The road is two lane, marked both center and outside white stripe. The road crews are out laying new blacktop. A road crew was standing there with a stop/slow sign and waved us through. We proceeded around the road workers (single file) with a van right behind us. Oncoming traffic was stopped by a sign changer at the far end. Mind you, this is a no passing (double centerline) zone. We get past the road work and the van edges us off the side and passes (again it's a no passing zone). Within two seconds, on comes a siren and scares the bejesus out of me. I'm thinking that this cop is going after the van for passing in a no passing zone. Well, about two blocks up, the cop stops, waits for us to get close and flags us over to the side behind her car. She waddles back in her best 'bad cop' impression and commences to ask me what in the world we think we're doing, riding these things down the road. After a couple of minutes of trying to explain to her the Michigan law (yes, I said I was explaining the law to HER)..she starts to tell me that she may have to give me a ticket for driving an unlawful vehicle down the road.
At this time, I remove my helmet and she recognizes me from court. I was just on jury duty TWICE in a row due to a court error. Judge Susan Grant was the officiator and this particular cop was the duty bailiff for her court. Judge Grant had just got through telling me, in open court, that if anything came up where I needed her assistance, to let her know personally and she would take care of it, seeing that I had been picked for jury duty twice due to an error by her court.
Suddenly, she became very placating towards my group and I told her that she should become much more aware of what the laws actually state. In addition, I pointed out her error on not pulling over the van that passed in a no passing zone. Although I never did contact Judge Grant on the circumstances, this particular officer has passed our group on a number of occassions and has actually waved as she went by......
The lesson I learned?.....Just because they are in a position of authority, they are not always correct. Since this area is in the country, the local police and even the sheriff's patrols are not aware of what the laws pertaining to MOPEDS really are. They seldon see them. So YOU should be aware of the law and follow it. Sometimes you have to educate them....

Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 9:35 pm
by BluPhire
Wow! I can't believe the nerve of people who abuse their power of authority. The pigs....... I mean cops, can and always will be a-holes. Here in Goodyear, AZ, cops know their place and the laws of the scooters. But like 3 miles from where I live, if a cop sees you on a scooter, he'll give you a first class trip to the slammer and probably sell your scooter in an auction. People : Humans :: Pigs : Cops.

Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 11:23 pm
by vette76
um,id be careful. i thought someone said noiseguy was a cop.

Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 11:47 am
by noiseguy
No, I'm not a cop. But you never know, one of our members might be. I'll withhold my personal feeling on this.

This kind of harrassment is common; I used to get hassled all the time riding bicycles around town when I was in college. Often the info conflicted; some officers felt bikes belonged on the sidewalk, some thought they should be on the street. In that state, riding on the sidewalk was actually ticketable.

Best thing to do if you ride these all the time is to print out the local laws on scooters and keep them with the rest of your documents. Many police just don't know what is legal in the state they operate in; it becomes your job to educate them in a professional and courteous manner.

Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 2:39 pm
by vette76
oh,sorry i guess i misunderstood.

got away

Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 5:38 pm
by darat
well here is my little story. well it was about 10:30PM and i was comeing home from my friends house who lives about 2min from my house and i zip acrose 13 mile and there was a car on the wrong side of the road and i went realy fast past it and i notice it was a Fraser cop, i was like oh ship and i was less then a min from my house and i seen that he had turned around to come after me. so i went as fast as i can and i got away from the cop by going to my back yard and i got off and the cop passed me a just looked at me in a bad way. by the way i had my neon lights on. it was so funny i got away from a cop on a moped :D

Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 6:00 pm
by vette76
post pics man. i was thinking it would be cool to mount neon/led lights up underneith the fenders on boyh sides of the spree so the engine/rims glow+the street. i have not actually got stopped on the spree just "the look".lol. i came up the street one day and a cop was at the top of the hill coming toward me,so i just sat there and waited for him to roll down the window and he just smiled and passed me. i guess it brought back some memories. i have always gotton stopped on my gocart. i never got stopped on my moped (traded for the spree) even when i had straight pipes because as soon as i saw a cop i turned off the engine and pretended i was peddeling.lol. (i guess the cop wasnt smart enough to relize i was peddeling a 2 hundred pound bike at 30 mph).

Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 6:19 pm
by Ozzimo
Just a couple of days ago I was riding to my Bus Driver training (i'll be driving a tour us in Alaska for my summer job) anyway I was at a stop light where a motorcycle cop was waiting to catch people speeding into a meaty part of town, something I happen to appriciate. So I gave him a nod at which point he says "you need eye-protection man, its the law." It was my own fault of course so all I could do was say, "um... sorry" You wanna talk about a long red light... So yesterday I bought a full-face helet for 20 bucks, should end that problem. :)

EDIT: I just remembered one more. In Washington state you can park a "moped" on a bike rack. Also in Washington my spree is registered as a "moped" So for a few days I rode to work, parked my scooter on the bike rack near the door and had a nice day at work. Mind you I was working on a college campus so the cops that ticketed me were "Campus Security" so I don't expect them to know laws about scooters and mopeds. Well they ticket me for parking my "motorcycle" in a no parking zone.

Long story short, I fought it, they let it go but I didn't park on the bike rack again.

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 8:54 am
by vette76
i dont really like cops.sometimes. well, except the one that let me go. but he probably just got tired of telling me to put it away since evey day something new rolls out of my garage.

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 1:20 am
by mopedman
i got stoped st 4:00 pm for no working head light
come on it was mid day

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 11:49 am
by Jerry
Mid afternoon, suuny day, bright sun tan weather.....it doesn't matter. The law is the law and it states the headlight will be on at all times when operating the scooter.
I do show sympathy, however, as the exact same thing happened to me on my snowmobile. I was far away from anywhere that I could possibly get a new headlight, but I received a ticket anyway. I never drive alone and my partner went ahead to a gas station and luckily, they had a replacement bulb. Took maybe a half hour and the patrol stayed there the whole time. When I replaced it, they destroyed the ticket. I got lucky I guess. I was informed that they could have had a tow vehicle come and impound the vehicle (of course, I'd be stuck with the tow bill).
I even asked about driving with the high beam on and they wouldn't accept that as I could also be ticketed for that.
Again, lesson learned. I now carry replacement bulbs. Maybe next time it will be dark outside and I'll be thankful I have a replacement.
Learn from my mistakes and avoid the hassles. I'm sure there are times that the authorities can be non-forgiving, but maybe it's for my own good. No one really knows what could have happened up the trail if I had continued on with no headlight.........